Adapting forests and people to climate change: conserving ecosystem services that reduce risk to the world's poorest, a framework proposal

This publication reports on how climate change is going to trigger more frequent and fiercer storms, floods, landslides, forest fires, extreme temperatures and drought, and developing countries will bear the brunt of these blows. These countries are home to poor populations who live and work in floodplains, mountainsides and deltas and when disaster strikes, they are the first to lose their homes, crops and livelihoods.

The report describes the importance of protecting and managing forests so they can continue to provide services that are helping strengthen community resilience to disasters, such as storing clean water, providing food and building material, preventing landslides, and protecting against storms. It also alarms about the levels of tropical deforestation and forest degradation caused by poor management which is driving the loss of biological diversity and impairing ecosystem function.

The report presents CIFOR’s five-year initiative on research and action to reduce climate change-related risks through improved forest management, and to exploit the synergies between forest-based adaptation and mitigation strategies. The initiative would link policy analysis, vulnerability assessment, adaptation planning, research support to local initiatives, and knowledge dissemination to contribute to the inclusion of forests in adaptation policies and plans. Particularly, in Southeast Asia the focus would be on the vulnerability of coastal areas and the role of ecosystem services in adaptation and disaster risk reduction in Indonesia and the Philippines.

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